California Hotels Donate $68 Million in Support of Local Philanthropy

Hotel Caring initiative highlights the lodging sector’s vital role in supporting local communities.

SACRAMENTO, CA – (Nov. 12, 2024) – The California Hotel & Lodging Association (CHLA), in partnership with Oxford Economics, today released the final statewide and regional data from their Hotel Caring initiative, showing that California hotels donated $68 million and volunteered more than 328,000 hours to community causes in 2023.

The data, collected through a statewide hotel survey this summer, captures a range of philanthropic activities supported by California hotels.  

“These results showcase the culmination of work hotels do every day to impact the lives of so many people in communities across the state,” said Lynn S. Mohrfeld, CHLA President & CEO. “This data also reaffirms what many in the sector already know – that hotels are the heartbeat of California tourism – service runs through our blood, and we’re proud that our efforts reach far and wide.”

The results concluded:

  • Hotels contributed a total of $68 million in the form of cash, in-kind donations, fundraising, scholarships and food drive donations in 2023
  • Hotel employees volunteered 328,000 hours for various activities ranging from beach clean-ups to blood drives in 2023
  • Hotels provided $12.9 billion in job earnings in California in 2022
  • Hotels helped generate $78.4 billion in hotel guest spending in California in 2022

Oxford Economics, one of the world’s foremost independent global advisory firms, worked with CHLA to provide third-party credentialing of the data. The statewide and regional results are publicly available as a fact sheet on the Hotel Caring website. 

"This initiative represents an exciting new extension of our traditional research. It draws out important—but not previously measured—connections between the state’s vibrant hospitality sector and local residents," said Aran Ryan, Director of Industry Studies at Tourism Economics.

For more on the impacts, see the latest fact sheet. 

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